The dailymail has an article on last year’s biblio-shreddus annuas, 77 million books pulped out. 77 million. Please note that the population of the UK is 61 million and in 2009, 235 million books were sold. So, for every 4 books printed, one was ground to mulch, and three were sold. Wow.

What was interesting to me was that — at least in the UK — celebrity books are the low-sellers. I would hazard that in the US, that number is similar, only because there are so many celebrity bios. Current, only Going Rogue, breaks Amazon’s Top 20. To be fair, there’s a heckuva lot of diet books in the Top 20 at the moment, only to be expected on January 6. USA Today lists two in the top 20, Going Rogue, The Blind Side (celebrity bio or true-life man overcoming the odds genre? You decide). Further down is Andre Agassi and Ted Kennedy. So, I would surmise that if a celebrity has a good story to tell, the book will sell — MUST LIKE ALL OTHER BOOKS. Sigh.